Running Sound through Receiver to External Speakers goes wrong

I suppose you are using HDMI ARC in this path ? Or perhaps you are using optical cable passing bitstream multi-channel signal?

DavidEsq said:

... then out from there to out to my Denon AVR-5950H receiver. I then run the sound to my stereo speakers.

Click to expand...

If that's the case you are only passing 2 channel to the external speakers. My suggestion is:
1) Use HDMI ARC to pass multi-channel signal from TV to receiver.
2) Simultaneously feed receiver using optical cable from TV to receiver, but set the TV to send PCM signal via optical to get a down-mixed 2 ch signal via optical.

This way, when you set the audio source to HDMI (ARC) in the receiver, you get to enjoy multi-ch audio in your main room. When you want to listen via the external speakers, set the receiver's audio source to the optical input from TV.

You can also connect the digital-coax/optical from the cable box straight to the receiver and set the cable box to send PCM signal thru the digital-coax/optical and get same results. Bottom line, you should only send stereo signal to your 2 ch external speakers from Denon. And I suppose you are using Denon's multi-room feature for this.

Ok, my head is already spinning. Last evening I spent over two hours talking first with Denon (waste of time, as I learned at the end the guy was talking me through instructions he got from watching a YouTube video as we spoke. Sony walked me through a number of steps, none of which was helpful. Then the tv picture goes. I rebooted the cable box but it got stuck and never recovered. This morning I took it to Xfinity and got a replacement.

I set it up as follows, using HDMI cable: cable box>receiver>tv. I then called Sony again and we went through a couple of steps and got sound to come through the external speakers. But here's the rub: whether I got primary sound (such as dialogue) over background music and sound (secondary sound) differed from program to program. Even a show where there was primary sound, when a commercial went on the secondary sound predominated. The problem was the same on streaming services. On YouTube I got primary sound. On a DIsney+ show it was secondary sound.

I then found the instruction book online, which instructed me to plug the cable box into the tv, and then plug the tv into the receiver. This has allowed me to get primary sound, but only through the internal speakers. Nothing came out of the external speaker.

What now?

And g=gow do I determine if there is a center speaker and how do I get to it to turn it to off (assuming it is not already off).

DavidEsq said:

Ok, my head is already spinning. Last evening I spent over two hours talking first with Denon (waste of time, as I learned at the end the guy was talking me through instructions he got from watching a YouTube video as we spoke. Sony walked me through a number of steps, none of which was helpful. Then the tv picture goes. I rebooted the cable box but it got stuck and never recovered. This morning I took it to Xfinity and got a replacement.

I set it up as follows, using HDMI cable: cable box>receiver>tv. I then called Sony again and we went through a couple of steps and got sound to come through the external speakers. But here's the rub: whether I got primary sound (such as dialogue) over background music and sound (secondary sound) differed from program to program. Even a show where there was primary sound, when a commercial went on the secondary sound predominated. The problem was the same on streaming services. On YouTube I got primary sound. On a DIsney+ show it was secondary sound.

I then found the instruction book online, which instructed me to plug the cable box into the tv, and then plug the tv into the receiver. This has allowed me to get primary sound, but only through the internal speakers. Nothing came out of the external speaker.

What now?

And g=gow do I determine if there is a center speaker and how do I get to it to turn it to off (assuming it is not already off).

Click to expand...

Your head is only spinning because you let yourself get caught up with bad information by both the people "helping" you on the phone, and the instruction book you found.

Ignore them and the instruction book. Don't plug the cable box directly to the TV. Just plug an HDMI cable from the cable box into one of the inputs on the AVR (whether you use CBL/SAT, DVD or BluRay doesn't matter). You also run an HDMI cable from the TV (usually HDMI 1, but whichever is also marked as ARC) to the AVR. As far as connecting things, that's all you need to do.

If you plug the cable box directly to the TV, you have to run an optical cable from the TV to the Denon in order to get audio from your external speakers. Frankly, you would only do that if your AVR is too old, and you wanted to get 4K.

If you're not getting dialogue, I would verify your AVR, cable box and Sony TV settings to make sure that you're set to 2ch if you only have the two speakers (or 2.1 if you have a subwoofer). Did you run the calibration software on your Denon? If you have it set to 5.1 with no centre channel speaker, that would be why you're not getting dialogue.

And the reason why you'd get dialogue with some content, and not other content is because a lot of TV content is only 2ch, but commercials are 5.1 as mentioned by @bobknavs . Same with YouTube - that only outputs in 2ch, so you're going to get everything from the Left/Right channels.

It sounds like your Denon is set to output 5.1 when you (seemingly) only have 2ch, and it thinks you have a centre channel. Post screenshots of your settings so we can better assist you.